From the comms room, Holsten watches the final shuttle lift for the moon base, its human cargo unaware. The base, built by automatics during Gilgamesh’s last sleep and tested for habitation, is to become a new human foothold.

Guyen’s plan assigns fifty active crew to maintain the base with two hundred more in suspension, expanding as possible via future awakenings and children. Gilgamesh will depart for another terraforming site and, generations later, hopefully return with pirated Old Empire technology. Holsten privately fears that such gains might enable an eventual strike against Kern. If Gilgamesh never returns, the moon colony must simply “manage.”

The newly appointed colonist leader, an unnamed woman, accepts her orders grimly. To Holsten, her composure masks despair; he sees the colony as a life sentence for her and her descendants.

Lain arrives and urges Holsten to suspension before rotation stops, warning that gravity will fluctuate until thrust builds. As chief engineer, Lain will work through the transition. Holsten’s injured ribs are expected to heal while he sleeps.

Before they part, Lain promises a cache of ancient discoveries awaits after the voyage; Holsten doubts Guyen will permit it. He gazes one last time at the “prison” moon, thinks “rather you than me,” and heads with Lain’s help to the Key Crew sleep room.